 At least five passengers have been confirmed killed, and three others critically injured after bandits armed with sophisticated weapons opened fire on a vehicle passing along Yantumaki Dam Musa Road in Kutsina state. The state police spokesman, Gambo Issa, confirmed the incident to newsmen. Dam Musa Local Government Area is one of the most vulnerable areas in Kutsina, sharing boundaries with the dreaded Rugu Forest and areas like Safana, Kankara, and other communities in Zamfara state where bandits are reportedly still very active. Well joining us now is former Assistant Director of the Department of State Services, Dennis Amakere. Mr. Amakere, good evening. Good evening. How are you today? I'm fine. Thank you. Well, the last time you were here, you agreed to a submission that the violence being witnessed in the North was just a tip of the iceberg. Now at least 103 persons have been killed in the last one week. That's an increase of over 900% when compared to the previous week. Mr. Amakere, we are not even at war. Well, I think we are at war. We are at war. The index is very clear. Any kind of conflict that had 1,000 or more people dying is declared as war. So we are at war. There are too many people dying in Nigeria. And then of course, apparently we are not addressing this thing properly whereby the last time you interviewed I was on this platform with you. You talked about it and it's not gone away because we've not been addressing it properly. The way it should be addressed. How should it be addressed? It's not on one time too many. It's just so... How should it be addressed? You know, we are not basically pursuing this thing systematically. We are more episodic, you know, or we react in our response. All bandits have kidnapped some people. Then we mobilize people and send them to that place. All bandits have attacked a train in Mapuja, Kaduna, Hue, and then this particular one will send some people down there. That is, you know, fire brigade, so to say, you know, we have to pursue this thing systematically. And then systematically means we go back to the drawing board, we plan properly, and then of course, know the strength of the enemy that we are dealing with. Because we are still looking at these people as bandits, they have foreign support and this support has made them so strong they are not scared of our military. They are busy attacking military installations, abusing military convoys, even governor's convoys. So I think we have to go back to the drawing board and re-strategize. Okay, well, just today there are reports of five people being killed as bandits open fire a vehicle in Katsina. It's coming at a time, it's coming at a time, Mr. Makre, when the Secretary of the Federal Government says that the country security situation has improved. Are they so blinded to the reality on ground or one doesn't know how else to describe this? I think we are looking at different statistics, we are looking at different statistics. Yes, there are some gains that the military and security forces have achieved, there are gains definitely, but also there are some that affect the ordinary man and that is where we should be looking at really because when you look at it, children are not in school, like in Kaduna State, all the schools are closed down, so the children are still in school and the parents will be feeling, oh, this situation is still very bad if you are not in school, you know, but I know that the security agencies are doing the best they could, but there is more that the government need to do for these security agencies. You said they are doing the best that they could, the best is not enough, what should be added to this best, to get the new best result, because result is the name of the game, people are being killed. Yes, yeah, result is the name of the game and then the best is not enough in the sense that we are still using an old wine bag for new wine, indirectly, what is going on here is this, our population in the security agencies is not enough, like we are saying it, you know, we are in a state of war and now the police has approved only 10,000 policemen a year to be recruited into the police, 10,000 for the next three years, right now there are no bodies around 350,000 or 400,000, the military is not up to 300,000, Army Air Force leaving, they are not up to 300,000, so when you are, like there is a fire and a big fire that is burning a house and then you tell people to instead of even buckets of water, tell them to carry a corpse and carry water and pour at the fire and see if it will put out the fire. So why are they not recruiting enough, funding? We are not recruited enough, we are not, consider our population and our present situation which is a war situation. So why are they not recruiting enough, why are they not recruiting enough? I don't know, I don't know, that is what the policy makers have to come up with. Well the issue of funding has come up, the governor's forum is saying that they provide more than the federal government. That's for police. Yeah. They actually provide more for the police but the police, like I said, the police is about let's say 400,000 people for 36 states, think of the local government, 774 states, local government. So how do you distribute this and then make them so effective in dealing with the problem we have at hand? So they are in need for the police to massively recruit, you have the military to massively recruit and then of course get the security agencies like the DSS and other agencies to massively recruit, our borders are porous but the number of customs and immigration officers cannot cover those borders. So we know where the problem is and we need to attack it frontally. Will there ever be light at this ever duct tunnel in this country? Definitely there will be light at the end of the tunnel, I'm very optimistic and we just need to do the right thing and then of course we will overcome this. We overcome a civil war so why can't we overcome a boundary tree that is being disturbing us? So let's give hope a life you say. Mr. Dennis Amakris, thank you so much for your time. Mr. Dennis Amakris, former assistant director of the Department of State Services.